Imaginal Travel: An Expedition in Fine Art Practice in Search of the Loneliest Palm

Abstract

This research, as fine art practice, explores ‘imaginal travel’, understood as intensities, encounters, and artefacts of travel, used during travel, and used in place of travel, and as images which travel themselves. Imaginal travel is an active mode that is both internal and shared; it is an attitude of curiosity; an intensity of experience; and is defined by modes of framing in terms of shifts in scale and attention to detail. Through a fragmentary and eclectic expedition in fine art practice this research explores the excess and intensities of travel and movement around, through, and by the sole remaining tree of the Hyophorbe Amaricualis species, known as the ‘Loneliest Palm’, which is found on the island of Mauritius.